Author R&R with Lorie Lewis Ham

Lorie Lewis Ham lives in Reedley, California and has been writing ever since she was a child. Her first song and poem were published when she was 13, and she has gone on to publish many articles, short stories, and poems throughout the years, as well as write for a local newspaper, and publish 7 mystery novels. For the past 14 years, Lorie has been the editor-in-chief and publisher of Kings River Life Magazine, and she produces Mysteryrat’s Maze Podcast, where you can hear an excerpt of her book One of Us, the first in a new series called The Tower District Mysteries. Book 2, One of You, was released in June of 2024.

About One of You:  With her life on the California Coast behind her, Roxi Carlucci is beginning to feel at home in the Tower District—the cultural oasis of Fresno, CA—where she now lives with her cousin-private eye Stephen Carlucci, her pet rat Merlin, a Pit Bull named Watson, and a black cat named Dan. She has a new entertainment podcast, works as a part-time P.I., and is helping local bookstore owner Clark Halliwell put on the first-ever Tower Halloween Mysteryfest. The brutal summer heat is gone and has been replaced by the dense tule fog—perfect for Halloween! She just wishes everyone would stop calling her the "Jessica Fletcher" of the Tower District simply because she found a dead body when she first arrived. But when one of the Mysteryfest authors is found dead, she fears she jinxed herself. The Carlucci’s are hired to find the killer before they strike again. Will Mysteryfest turn into a murder fest? How is the local gossip website back, and what does it know about the death of Roxi’s parents?

Lorie stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about her books:

 

"Writing and Research Through the Years: What Changed/What Stayed the Same"

With the release of my new book, One of You, this past June, I have now published seven mystery novels. The first five were published in the early 2000s, and the latest two were published in 2021 and now 2024. As I look back at the process of both writing and promoting those books, it is amazing to me how much has changed, but also what hasn’t changed.

My first book, Murder in Four-Part Harmony, was also the first book I ever completed. It took me a LONG time (ten years at least) to finish as I was learning as I went along. I was also reading every book on mystery writing I could get my hands on and religiously reading Lawrence Block’s column in Writer’s Digest. In my first books, I wrote what I knew—I was a gospel singer at the time so my sleuth was also one. It was a world I knew well—the good and the bad. Each of the next several books took one or two years to write.

Back then, promotion was a lot different. ARCs (Advance Reading Copies) were only in paperback. Then they had to be sent off via snail mail. While author websites were becoming important, there wasn’t much else as far as online promotion back then. You set up book events at bookstores and libraries and did everything in real life.

The next book I wrote, One of Us, which was the first book in my new Tower District Mystery series, took me roughly ten years to write. It was also the shortest book I’ve ever written at around 63,000 words. This time it was normal life that slowed the process, and figuring out what the new series would be. I was busy with my online magazine Kings River Life, which took up most of my writing time.

When that book finally came out in 2021, it was a whole new world as far as promotion and events go. With both that book and the new one, most of my promotion has been online and I have only sent out one print ARC, all the rest were eBook ARCs through the Bookfunnel website. While I am actually having a few local in person events this time for my new book, the majority of my promotion with both of these books is online.

Thankfully, One of You, only took me three years to write and publish instead of ten. Before edits, it was also the longest book I had ever written at 99.000 words. The edited product though is closer to the length of those first books I wrote, 83,000 words. But honestly, I was shocked at how long it was to begin with—none of my other books even started out that long! One of You was very much the product of two NaNoWriMos (National Novel Writing Month) and Sisters in Crime Write-Ins in between, so perhaps that had something to do with its original length—word count is of high priority at NaNoWriMo! Keep in mind I am also a pantser (I just sit down and write the first draft—no outline), something else that hasn’t changed since my first book.

The research I do for my books has changed in some ways, and not in others. Both times I wrote what I knew up to a point. My new series is set in the Tower District (the arts and entertainment district of Fresno, CA), an area I know well. My main character is a podcaster, and so am I. It involves community theatre and animal rescue—both things I have been involved with. The two series are connected by a certain family—the Carluccis—who appear in both. They in turn come from a Mafia family. My early research on the Mafia was largely done by reading a lots of books and newspaper articles. Now my research is mostly done on the internet, except for making trips to the Tower District to check on certain details like street names and to absorb the feel of the place.

However, the main research I do for the mystery parts of the stories has stayed mostly the same. Early on, I believe through Sisters in Crime, I became acquainted with the wonderful D.P. Lyle who helps me with medical and coroner details for the body. He still is a resource to this day, as are the wonderful books he has written along those lines. The local police detective I interviewed for those investigation details with that very first book, Steve Wright, is still my main resource in that area as well. He has gone from police detective, all the way up to police chief, and now retired, during that time. I couldn’t do this without them.

One last thing that has stayed the same all the way through my mystery author journey is Sisters in Crime. They are not only a great resource for all things mystery publishing and writing, but they have been very supportive all along my journey. Without my then local chapter in Fresno, I never would have written my first book series because it was someone there who suggested the idea of writing a series featuring a gospel singing amateur sleuth-it had never crossed my mind.

 

You can learn more about Lorie and her writing on her website mysteryrat.com and find her on Facebook, BookBub, Goodreads, and Instagram @krlmagazine & @lorielewishamauthor. One of You is now available via all major online booksellers.

Mystery Melange

The Maltese Falcon Society of Japan has named S.A. Cosby’s Razorblade Tears (first published by Flatiron Books in 2021) as the winner of its 2024 Maltese Falcon Award. The honor is bestowed upon the best hard-boiled/private eye novel published in Japan in the previous year. Cosby will receive a wood-crafted Falcon statuette. (HT to the Gumshoe Site by way of The Rap Sheet)

Sisters in Crime Australia has announced the shortlist for the 24th Davitt Awards for best crime and mystery books. Members of the organization are also able to vote on the Davitt Readers' Choice Award through the end of July. The Best Adult novel category include Bronwyn Hall, The Chasm (HQ Fiction); Amanda Hampson, The Tea Ladies (Penguin Random House); Marija Pericic, Exquisite Corpse (Ultimo Press); and also four debut novels, Christine Keighery, The Half Brother (Ultimo Press); Suzie Miller, Prima Facie (Pan Macmillan Australia); Darcy Tindale, The Fall Between (Penguin Random House); and Monica Vuu, When One of Us Hurts (Pan Macmillan Australia).

The BloodShed is a new, interactive crime fiction festival to be held in Swindon, UK, which will bring authors and readers together - with writing workshops led by published crime authors from across the UK. There will also be a variety of panel interviews, and the chance to show off your sleuthing ability against those who write mysteries for a living. More details will be forthcoming soon about this event, scheduled for October 18-20, 2024.

On the heels of Jo Callaghan winning the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2024 for In the Blink of an Eye, T&R Theakston Limited announced it's extending its partnership with Harrogate International Festivals to continue sponsoring the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, a partnership that's been in place for 20 years. The festival has attracted internationally best-selling authors such as Val McDermid, Denise Mina, S A Cosby, P D James, Lee Child, John Grisham, Michael Connolly, Ian Rankin, and Harlan Coben.

It's always difficult to keep up with all the end-of-the-year "best" crime fiction lists, but Parade Magazine decided to get a head start with "The 29 Best Mystery, Thriller and True Crime Books of 2024…so Far."

In the Q&A roundup, Criminal Element's Lisa Pulitzer interviewed her A Hunger to Kill co-author, Detective Kim Mager, about Mager's writing experience as a first-time author, goals for sharing the previously unrevealed details behind breaking open the Shawn Grate case, as well as personal details about her life as a mom, wife, and female police detective; and at Writers Who Kill, E.B. Davis interviewed Valerie Burns about the third book in her Baker Street series, titled A Cup of Flour, A Pinch of Death.

Author R&R with Allen Wyler

Allen Wyler is a neurosurgeon who left practice in 2002 to be Medical Director for a medical technology start-up, Northstar Neuroscience, which went public (NSTR) in 2006. Leveraging a love for thrillers since the early '70s, Wyler began writing fiction and published his first book in 2005. At the end of 2007 he retired to devote full time to writing. He served as Vice President of the International Thriller Writers organization for several years and has been nominated twice for a Thriller Award. He lives in Seattle.

In Wyler’s 7th installment of the Deadly Odds techno-thriller series, Deadly Odds 7.0, reformed hacker Arnold Gold and his team are contracted to come up with a daring plan to sneak past newly installed AI-enhanced security systems to hack the computers and offices at a high-profile Seattle law firm in an ultra-secure downtown office building—while squaring off against the clock and a hard-driving, paranoid Head of Security, Itzhak Mizrahi.

Allen Wyler stops by In Reference to Murder to talk about writing and researching his novels:

I’m a native Seattleite who, at the University of Washington, made the mistake of majoring in English Literature with the intention of applying for medical school; a choice that turned into a class-scheduling combination from hell. So, I ended up with a BS degree in Basic Medical Sciences, entered med school and went on to become a neurosurgeon. As satisfying as that career was, the specialty didn’t allow for a great deal of creativity. I mean, who wants their brain surgeon to get super creative during the removal of a tricky tumor?  For years I suppressed a squeaky little voice buried in consciousness crying out to scratch a creative itch. Then, one Saturday I came home from making hospital rounds and announced to my wife that I was going write a novel. A thriller, to be exact because that’s the genre I love. At which point she collapsed on the floor in laughter. That did it! I sat down to start in. Eventually I turned out a thriller about a hacker, Radical Dood, that seriously sucked as evidenced by the reams of rejection letters that followed. Still, I kept at it.

Why hackers, might you ask? Well, because years before, as an Assistant Professor at the UW, I ran a neurophysiology lab in which experiments were controlled by a minicomputer, for which I had to write proprietary software, so I knew a little about the subject. A few years later Clifford Stoll wrote a non-fiction book, Cuckoo’s Egg. Stoll was an astronomer turned systems manager at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab who tracked down a hacker in their computer who was stealing classified information for an international spy ring fueled by cash, cocaine, and the KGB. Wow! Pretty engrossing stuff. I was totally hooked on the subject.

Years later a literary agent replied to a query letter with the advice that although my style was “commercial,” a neurosurgeon writing about hackers really wasn’t going to cut it. That in order to land a contract I needed to write what I knew. In other words, “write a medical thriller, stupid.”

So, I wrote a Deadly Errors, a thriller about a hacked electronic medical records system. It scored two-book contract with Tor/Forge. Although medical thrillers were fun to write, I still fantasized writing about hacking.

Switching publishers allowed me the freedom to publish Deadly Odds, originally a stand-alone about twenty-three-year Seattle-based odds-maker and computer genius, Arnold Gold. Described as a “part-time hacker and full-time virgin” by his friends, Gold flies to Las Vegas to try to get lucky—in more ways than one. But his high stakes internet activity inadvertently drops him into a vortex of international terrorism that results in murder and takes every last bit of Arnold's intellect and legendary skill to stay one step ahead of murderous terrorists, the FBI, the local cops and his lawyer. In other words, a quintessential thriller. My publisher and I loved the character I’d stumbled on, so decided I should turn Deadly Odds into a sequentially numbered series similar to software iterations. However, each episode can be read and enjoyed as a standalone.

The series chronicles Arnold’s arc toward maturity as a male, his personal life, and his career as a businessman who is building a select group of “white hat” hackers into IT team specializing in serving the unique needs of law firms that, for various reasons, aren’t keen on opening their highly confidential files to unknown IT techs. In Deadly Odds 7.0 Arnold’s team is contracted by a high-powered law firm to break into their ultra-secure downtown offices by bypassing the building’s newly installed AI security enhancements while also squaring off against the clock and a hard-driving, paranoid Head of Security. These contracted break-ins represent a security-testing tactic known as penetration testing.

To help answer numerous questions that spring up during story development, I’ve developed a terrific team of consultants that include cybersecurity experts as well as law enforcement agencies such as Seattle and King County police and the FBI.

You can learn more about Allen Wyler and his writing via his website and follow him on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.  Deadly Odds 7.0 is available via Stairway Press and all major booksellers.

Mystery Melange

J. Madison Davis, Acting Executive Director of the International Association of Crime Writers North American Branch, alerted me to the news that Colson Whitehead's Crook Manifesto (Doubleday) has won the Hammett Prize trophy, which is awarded to the book of the year that best represents the conception of literary excellence in crime writing for the previous year. The other finalists included Night Letter by Sterling Watson (Akashic Books); The Almost Widow by Gail Anderson-Dargatz (Harper Avenue); Stealing by Margaret Verble (Mariner Books) and The Quiet Tenant by Clémence Michallon (Alfred A. Knopf). Congrats to Whitehead and all the finalists!

At this past weekend's Public Safety Writers Association Conference, the winners of the PSWA Writing Awards were announced. The Marilyn Meredith Award for Excellence in Writing went to Colin Conway; Best Book Cover to Hope Dies Last, A Stefan Kopriva Mystery by Frank Zafiro; Published Fiction Books–Police Procedural to Colin Conway for The Fate of Our Years, A 509 Crime Story; Published Fiction Books–Thriller to Devil Within, A Nathan Parker Detective Novel by James L’Etoile; Published Fiction Books–Suspense to Hope Dies Last, A Stefan Kopriva Mystery by Frank Zaffiro; Published Non-Fiction Book to The Alaskan Blonde: Sex, Secrets, and the Hollywood Story That Shocked America by James Bartlett; and Best Published Memoir, Living With Mr. Fahrenheit by Lisa Beecher. For all the finalists in those categories and the winners and finalists in the unpublished division, head on over to the PSWA website.

The 2024 Killer Nashville Claymore Award finalists for unpublished manuscripts were announced this week. The contest is limited to only the first 50 double-spaced pages of unpublished English-language manuscript, or appropriately formatted play or screenplay, containing elements of thriller, mystery, crime, suspense, action, and/or romance not currently under contract. The winners of the seventeen categories will be revealed at the Killer Nashville Awards Dinner on August 24, 2024 in Nashville, Tennessee.

The International Association of Media Tie-In Writers announced the finalists for the 2024 Scribe Awards, which celebrate and honor excellence in the field of writing tie-in fiction for media franchises. The works include novels, short stories, audio dramas, and graphic novels tied to licenses of movies and TV shows, as well as video games, comics, songs, and even book series. Although this year's field is heavily tilted toward science and speculative fiction, there are a few crime fiction works in the Original Novel – General category, including Legend of the Five Rings: Three Oaths by Josh Reynolds; Murder, She Wrote: Fit for Murder by Jessica Fletcher and Terrie Farley Moran; and Watch Dogs Legion: Cold Reboot. It was also announced that IAMTW’s 2024 Grandmaster and Faust Award Winner is James Reasoner, who has written more than 350 novels and more than 100 short stories. Although perhaps best known for westerns, he has written across many genres from mystery (including Walker, Texas Ranger tie-ins) to fantasy to science fiction.

Sisters in Crime’s Scarlet Stiletto Awards for Australian women’s best short crime and mystery stories, which offers a record $13,400 in prizes, is open for submissions. A brand-new award – the Cate Kennedy Award for Best Story Inspired by a Forensic Clue ($500) – is also being offered this year. The shortlist will be announced in October, with the awards being presented at a gala ceremony in Melbourne in late November. The closing date for the awards is August 31, 2024. For more information, head on over to their website.

Penguin Noir is back by popular demand with two events coming to Brisbane and Melbourne this August, featuring an action-packed showcase with some of the best Australian crime writers. Authors scheduled to participate in the Brisbane event on August 1 include Benjamin Stevenson (Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone), Candice Fox (a James Patterson co-writer), Fiona McIntosh (Jack Hawksworth series), Margaret Hickey (The Creeper), and Georgia Harper (What I Would Do to You). The event in Melbourne will take place a week later on August 8 and feature Kerryn Mayne (Lenny Marks Gets Away with Murder), Amanda Hampson (The Cryptic Clue), Amy Doak (Eleanor Jones Can't Keep a Secret), and Lyn Yeowart (The Silent Listener).

Registration is now open for NoirCon 2024, the 8th and biggest NoirCon yet, with four thrilling days of mystery and intrigue at the Palm Springs Cultural Center in Palm Springs, California, from November 7th to 10th, 2024. The organizers are partnering with the Palm Springs Cultural Center and the Best Bookstore in Palm Springs to bring you this year's event, which will feature panels, speakers, classic film screenings with special guests, notable author events, in-person book signings, and more. For more information and to register, follow this link.

The Thunderbolt Prize for crime writers resident in Australia is open for submissions. It includes major prizes and a youth category for writers under 18yrs. All genres of crime writing are eligible, from hard-boiled to comic, to paranormal to rural, noir to cozy, with entries welcome from anywhere in Australia. Works must be a maxmium of 2,500 words for fiction and non-Fiction and 60 lines for poems and be submitted by Friday, September 27, 2024.

Martin Edwards paid tribute to CADS 92, the final installment of Crime and Detective Stories, a magazine that Geoff Bradley has been running since July 1985. As Edwards notes, that's an incredible 39 years of dedication, "and the result has been something unique, an informal magazine that has gained immensely from its combination of homespun charm yet authoritative comment from a very wide of contributors."

Mystery Melange

Viola Davis and bestselling crime fiction author James Patterson have signed with Little, Brown and Company to co-write a novel. Davis has won the Oscar, Emmy, Tony, and Grammy, and she has already made the bestseller lists with her memoir, Finding Me. Set in the present-day rural south, the novel follows a dynamic and brilliant female judge on the brink of a decision with seismic repercussions for her small county, and potentially the whole nation. It puts her career, principles, and ultimately her life at stake. The yet-to-be-titled novel will be published by Little, Brown and Company in 2025 or 2026.

Frank Price will moderate a conversation between Gregg Hurwitz (of the Orphan X series) and Kevin Compton, both experts in "Thrillers, Tech, and Ethics in a Rapidly Changing World," on July 18 at San Francisco's Commonwealth Club of California. The program is sponsored by the San Francisco Commonwealth Club/World Affairs Council and is in-person only. Potential attendees are requested to sign up by July 10. (HT to Mystery Fanfare)

Mystery Readers Journal has a call for articles on the topic of Partners in Crime. They're looking for articles, reviews, and author essays about mysteries that focus on either "Partners in Crime: A Surfeit of Sleuths" or "Partners in Crime: Writing Teams." Author essays are first person, about yourself, your books, and the "Partners in Crime" connection (500-1000 words); reviews are 50-250 words; and articles are 500-1000 words. The deadline is August 1, 2024. For more information, follow this link.

Happy Anniversary to the Mystery Lovers Kitchen blog, which is celebrating 15 years of eating and writing. Members are sharing remembrances, stories, recipes, and offering some giveaways, too.


In the Q&A roundup, Crime Fiction Lover chatted with Joachim B. Schmidt, a Swiss author who writes a series set in his adopted home of Iceland featuring Kalmann, a charming, quirky neurodivergent man who has been told he has the academic capacity of a six-year-old but equally has the capacity for heroism, acting as Sheriff in the tiny community of Rauferhöfn, where he hunts arctic fox and Greenland shark with his grandfather; and Jeff Pierce over at The Rap Sheet blog spoke with Dean Jobb, author of A Gentleman and a Thief, a new biography about the notorious 1920s gentleman cat burglar, Arthur Barry.

Author R&R with J. Luke Bennecke

J. Luke Bennecke is a veteran civil engineer with a well-spent career helping people by improving Southern California roadways. He has a civil engineering degree, an MBA, a private pilot’s certificate, and is a partner in an engineering firm. He enjoys philanthropy and awards scholarships annually to high school seniors. In addition to his debut novel, bestseller and award-winning thriller Civil Terror: Gridlock, Luke has written several other novels and screenplays, a creative process he thoroughly enjoys. Luke resides in Southern California with his wife of 32+ years and three spunky cats. In his leisure time he enjoys traveling, playing golf, voiceover acting, and spending time with his grown daughters. Bennecke is a member of International Thriller Writers and looks forward to attending ThrillerFest every year in New York.

In his second Jake Bendel thriller, Waterborne, engineer Jake Bendel finds himself at the heart of a chilling bioterrorism plot when a mysterious illness linked to his revolutionary desalination plants begins affecting men across California. As the architect of these plants, Jake is suddenly embroiled in a lethal crisis, not just fighting to clear his name but also racing against time to find a cure for a rapidly spreading epidemic. With the entire state teetering on the brink of disaster, Jake's journey for survival becomes a complex battle against unseen enemies. From dodging assassination attempts by drones to uncovering the dark secrets of BioStall, the biotech giant involved in the viral outbreak, Jake’s every move is fraught with danger and deceit. The stakes couldn’t be higher as he navigates through layers of betrayal and manipulation in a desperate bid to save millions of lives.

Luke Bennecke stops by In Reference to Murder to take some "Author R&R" about writing and researching his book:

The idea for Waterborne came to me while editing my first novel, Gridlock. I’d been kicking around “what if” questions related to the California drought, giving myself a magic wand, if money were no object, “how would I use science and engineering to solve the drought?” I decided this would be the second novel in the Jake Bendel universe.

In a bit of a “duh moment,” I realized California has 800 miles of coastline, so technically there’s plenty of water here. But, of course, it’s saltwater, right? We’d need a bunch of desalination plants. So, I went down the rabbit hole online and learned as much as I could about the various types of systems to remove the salt from seawater to provide fresh, clean drinking water. I discovered that the process of cleaning the water is notoriously power-hungry.

Again, with the magic wand, what could we power these desalination plants with that won’t kill the environment, make global climate change worse, and at the same time, not break the taxpayer bank? (I assumed in my fictional story the government would fully fund the system.) Not long after searching, I found the solution: Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs)! At the time I started outlining the story (in 2018), MIT researchers had recently resurrected nuclear technology from the 1950s. MSRs are safe, eco-friendly (no carbon footprint, and they can actually run on spent nuclear rods from the OLD light water reactors, the ones creating all of the nuclear waste everyone’s worried about), and relatively inexpensive.

Now that I had the guts of the plot and a science/tech theme, it was time to weave in the rest of my favorite themes: terrorism and safety, environmental issues, survival and perseverance, ethical dilemmas, betrayal/trust, loss/grief, conspiracy/corruption, heroism/sacrifice, and identity/redemption.

I made sure my protagonist, Jake Bendel, went on a journey of self-discovery and redemption by facing challenges that forced him to confront his past, question his identity, and ultimately seek redemption for his perceived failings.

As an author, I’m a hybrid pantser/plotter, and definitely not a full outliner (some authors write 30,000+ word outlines BEFORE they start writing), because as an engineer, I have to have at least a little bit of structure. I wouldn’t want to start building a house or a bridge and “figure it out” as I went along. I’d want at least a skeleton set of plans, knowing where the kitchen would be, how many bedrooms/bathrooms we’d have, and the approximate square footage. And maybe whether the house is one story or two. Big picture stuff like that. Then for the look/feel, the color of the walls, the types of sinks/faucets, tile, flooring, etc. (all the things the homeowners would look/feel/touch), we can figure that out as we go along.

Same thing with Waterborne. I put together an eight-subact structure, with goals/conflict/resolution in each part, and with the underlying plot and themes at the ready, I sat down and started writing as organically as possible.

I think the fact the book has had about 30,000 Amazon downloads and almost 400 4+ star ratings shows that the story ended up providing a wonderfully extraordinary journey for my readers. If this type of story resonates with you, please visit Amazon and give it a read! It’s available in paperback and hardcover (audiobook is currently in production and should be available by the end of August). Hope you enjoy it!

You can learn more about J. Luke Bennecke via his website and follow him on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Waterborne is available via all major booksellers.

Author R&R with Matthew Saeman

Matthew Saeman spent the first twenty three years of his professional life in the industries of construction and sales. He acquired his teaching credential at the age of 47 and now instructs students with Autism and emotional disturbances. Storytelling has always been something he loved to do, but it wasn’t until later in life that he began writing novels. The late Gordon McAlpine was his mentor, inspiring him to take the next step once his short stories began getting published, and once he began writing novels, he knew this was the best way to express his creativity. Matthew enjoys writing in the Suspense/Thriller genre mainly because he loves the concept of keeping the reader constantly wondering what’s going to happen next, which characters might turn out to be bad, and whether or not the hero will win out in the end…which is far from certain. He’s written eight novels thus far, two of which have been published. His most recent, To Preserve, Protect and Destroy was released through Palmetto Publishing in June.

In To Preserve, Protect and Destroy, NASA geologist Terrence Sullivan is thrust into a perilous mission of universal significance. He is tasked with retrieving volatile stones from Mars, the same stones responsible for the disastrous end to a prior terraforming mission there. Initially, Terrence believes this mission is solely for universal safety. However, as the story progresses, he discovers the chilling reality behind its true objective. The stakes escalate beyond his wildest imagination, with the lives of the crew and millions of innocents at risk as the ship carrying the deadly stones is set to return to Earth…but not to land safely. As time dwindles, Terrence is forced to make decisions that will not only seal his fate but also that of humanity. Will he manage to avert the looming disaster and expose the truth, or will he become just another pawn sacrificed in this deadly Presidential power play?

Matthew Saeman stops by In Reference to Murder to take some "Author R&R" about writing and researching his book:

 

Having no first hand knowledge of the Geological science, the inner workings of NASA, or a corrupt U.S. President, in order to write this story with any degree of accuracy, I needed to spend countless hours reading novels, watching movies/documentaries, and scouring the internet not only to locate the “technical” information required, but also to make it believable to the reader that I knew everything there was to know about these topics. Of course, before one minute was spent researching anything, I needed to first put together a proper “skeleton” of the story.

Ideas for the stories I write hit me totally at random. Once I get an idea, I allow it to percolate for at least a day. If I still feel I want to pursue it, I take it to the next stage which is where I’ll write a very brief synopsis from start to finish. There’s a feeling I get in my gut that tells me if it’s an interesting concept and if I’d have fun writing it. With To Preserve, Protect and Destroy, my gut kept telling me to take it to the next stage, which is extending the brief synopsis into a longer one and incorporating more details, to include character names and bios. At this point, the story had begun building momentum, and so I went with it. Stage 4 is the process of developing a chapter outline. The first draft is always minimal but it’s a “living” document that grows as time passes. The outline for this book took about four months to complete… and that’s when I began doing my research.

In today’s world, with access to any and all information at the stroke of a key, the process of educating oneself on any subject is tremendously simpler than it was twenty years ago. But persistence and drive are the keys to success. Once I’d dedicated myself to writing this novel, I’d also dedicated substantial time to not only doing the necessary research, but also incorporating this newfound knowledge with the characters I’d created. Emulating aspects of myself or people that I knew helped me make the characters more real. As I said previously, the outline is a living document, so even after I began writing the chapters, there were changes I made in order for the story to work.

This process is not the same for every writer. In fact, I’d bet every writer does it different. The one aspect that is identical however is sticktoitivity. I love to write and so I manage my time appropriately. When I’m working on a story, there are hours dedicated to the writing process. If I’m unwilling to do this then the stories don’t get written. With To Preserve, Protect and Destroy, I dedicated part of every day to doing something that advanced where I was with that story. To me, writing is like exercising. Once you get into the rhythm of the process, it becomes easier to do each day. If you let days or weeks pass without writing, finding the right words can feel like pulling teeth.

 

You can learn more about Matthew Saeman and his writing via his website and follow him on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. To Preserve, Protect and Destroy is now available via all major booksellers.

Media Murder for Monday

It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news:

THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Lionsgate has set a release date of Labor Day weekend, August 30, for the action crime thriller 1992, which is one of Ray Liotta's final film roles. The story follows Mercer (Tyrese Gibson), who is desperately trying to rebuild his life and relationship with his son (Christopher Ammanuel) amidst the turbulent 1992 L.A. uprising following the Rodney King verdict. Across town, another father and son (Liotta and Scott Eastwood) put their own strained relationship to the test as they plot a dangerous heist to steal catalytic converters, which contain valuable platinum, from the factory where Mercer works. As tensions rise in Los Angeles and chaos erupts, both families reach their boiling points when they collide. Ariel Vromen directs, from a screenplay and story written by Vromen and Sascha Penn.

Zaid Abu Hamdan has begun principal photography in Jordan on the new film Boomah ("The Owl"), which is described as an "expansive crime thriller" set against the backdrop of Jordan’s underworld, with a similar gritty edge as City of God, Gomorrah, and La Haine. Rakeen Saad stars as "Boomah," a notorious and knife-savvy female gang member who becomes embroiled in a power struggle between street thugs and religious extremists while battling the traumas of her harrowing orphaned past. Saad is joined by Joanna Arida in the role of Boomah’s best friend and confidant, Anoud.

TELEVISION/SMALL SCREEN

Patrick Brammall is set to star in a six-part series adaptation of Ryan David Jahn’s book, The Dispatcher, for Apple TV+. Brammall will play police detective Ian Hunt, whose life fell apart ten years ago when his young daughter Maggie disappeared without a trace. Now working as a police dispatcher, the only thing that has kept him going is his implacable refusal to accept that she might be gone forever. When he receives a distress call from a young girl he is certain is Maggie, he will stop at nothing to find her and reunite his broken family, whatever the cost. The book, which was published in 2011, is set in East Texas and features a bullet-strewn, cross-country chase from Texas to California in a wild ride that passes through the outlaw territory of No Country for Old Men.

Rian Johnson celebrated the first day of filming the sophomore season of Poker Face, sharing a photo of the show’s clapboard, which listed star Natasha Lyonne as the director for episode two. Inspired by the inverted detective format of Columbo and similarly described by Johnson as a "howcatchem" (as opposed to the "whodunit" structure of Knives Out), Poker Face follows Vegas casino worker and human bullshit detector Charlie Cale (Lyonne) as she runs from the mob while solving a string of murders along the way. The star-studded series has featured such guest stars as Adrien Brody, Ron Perlman, Chloë Sevigny, Rowan Blanchard, and Rhea Perlman.

Onyx is not proceeding with Not Cops, a pilot from former Insecure showrunner Prentice Penny, which had scheduled filming to begin in mid-July when the plug was pulled last week. The drama revolved around residents of the Los Angeles neighborhood of Leimert Park who take charge of the safety in their community after defunding the police. Not Cops was in the middle of casting when the axe fell, with Bethlehem Million, Suzy Nakamura, and Chi McBride among those already on board.

Essence Atkins (First Wives Club), Melissa Ponzio (Chicago Fire) and Vaughn W. Hebron (The Oval) have signed on for recurring roles in Season 2 of Onyx Collective's Reasonable Doubt. The drama centers on Los Angeles-based, high-powered criminal defense attorney Jacqueline "Jax" Stewart (Emayatzy Corinealdi) as she deals with past traumas, a failing marriage, motherhood, and a murder case, all while trying to keep her life together.

Garret Dillahunt (Fear the Walking Dead) is set to recur in the new ABC drama High Potential, premiering this fall. Created by Drew Goddard based on a French film, the series stars Kaitlin Olson as Morgan, a single mom with three kids and an exceptional mind who helps solve an unsolvable crime when she rearranges some evidence during her shift as a cleaner for the police department. When they discover she has a knack for putting things in order because of her high intellectual potential, she is brought on as a consultant to work with by-the-book seasoned detective Karadec (Daniel Sunjata), and together they form an unusual and unstoppable team. Dillahunt will portray Lieutenant Melon, a bit of a jerk who heads up the Robbery Division of the LAPD precinct, but he’d much rather be running Major Crimes.

If you're wondering about the status of your favorite returning TV shows or eagerly anticipated new ones, Deadline compiled a handy list of TV premiere dates.

PODCASTS/VIDEO/RADIO

On Crime Time FM, Laura Sims chatted with host Paul Burke about her new novel, How Can I Help You, libraries, and the discipline of poetry.

The Red Hot Chili Writers spoke with thriller fiction legend Karin Slaughter, discussing her latest book, This Is Why We Lied, and touching on the cricket world cup in America.

THEATRE

Hot-on-the-heels of the critically acclaimed new BBC TV series, Ian Rankin’s much-loved detective is set to return in the stage production of Rebus: A Game Called Malice, which visits Edinburgh's Festival Theatre from September 10-14. Best known for his roles in Coronation Street, Peak Practice, and Casualty, Gray O’Brien plays John Rebus, with Billy Hartman returning to the role of Jack Fleming, having created it for the stage in 2023, and Abigail Thaw playing Stephanie Jeffries.

Mystery Melange

The results of the judges' Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award Top Picks are in for the 2024 Silver Falchion Awards for published novels and the Claymore Award for unpublished manuscripts. The announcement of the finalists in each category will be announced soon, with winners revealed at the Killer Nashville Awards Dinner on August 23, 2024, in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Framingham and Ashland Public Libraries are presenting the panel, "When the Mysteries Aren't Cozy: The Intersection of Horror and Crime Fiction," on July 17 from 6:30-8:30pm in Framingham, Massachusetts. Errick Nunnally will oversee the panel, featuring participating authors V. Castro (Bram Stoker award nominated writer), Margot Douaihy (Scorched Grace, named a Best Crime Novel of 2023 by The New York Times), and Gabino Iglesias (author of the Shirley Jackson and Bram Stoker award-winning novel, The Devil Takes You Home). The authors will also be available for a book sale and signing following the panel.

Marcy McCreary (The Disappearance of Trudy Solomon), Tracy Sierra (Nightwatching), and Vanessa Lillie (Blood Sisters) will participate in a "Women in Crime Fiction" panel discussion, Q&A, and book signing on Saturday, July 20th at 3:00 at the Hingham, MA, Barnes & Noble. Journalist Marisa Olsen will be moderating the panel for a discussion of what inspires the authors to create stories with compelling female protagonists, the women writers they admire, and some of their favorite female characters in the mystery/thriller/suspense genre.

Heading Downunder, the Woollahra Library at Double Bay will host "Writers & Readers: Wine & Crime Panel" on July 24, featuring a panel discussion with crime authors Candice Fox (winner of the Ned Kelly Award and a collaborator with James Patterson), Dinuka McKenzie (author of the Detective Kate Miles crime series), and Petronella McGovern (The Last Trace), hosted by Claudine Tinellis.

Left Coast Crime announced that the 2026 conference will be held in San Francisco, California from February 26 to March 1, returning to the city for the first time since Left Coast Crime #1 and #2 were held there in 1991 and 1992. The 36th annual convention will be held at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco on the Embarcadero, complete with San Francisco Cable Car stops and the Presidio Go Shuttle, which provides free trips to the historic Presidio (a National Park Site). From the nearby Port of San Francisco, you can catch a ferry to Alcatraz, Angel Island, Treasure Island, Jack London Square in Oakland, and many other destinations. More information about the convention's schedule will appear on the LCC 2026 website this fall.

Janet Rudolph has updated her list of crime fiction titles themed around The Fourth of July (Independence Day), with a little something for everyone's taste.

In the Q&A roundup, Rachel Howzell Hall, a two-time Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist as well as an Anthony, Edgar, International Thriller Writers, and Lefty Award nominee, applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, What Fire Brings; Kellye Garrett spoke with Crime Fiction Lover during the recent Capital Crime Festival in London about her latest novel, Missing White Woman, and her journey as a crime author; and Writers Who Kill's E. B. Davis interviewed Susan Van Kirk about Death in a Ghostly Hue, her third book in the Art Center Mystery series.

Author R&R with Jennifer Moorhead

Jennifer Moorhead graduated from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. Geaux Tigers! She has written and produced three indie short films that each made Top 20 at the Louisiana Film Prize and were awarded at festivals around the world. She lives in Louisiana with her husband, two needy golden doodles, one very un-needy shelter kitty, and a plethora of farm animals. Her grown daughters are off creating their own life stories. When she’s not writing, she’s photographing the swamps and winding trails in her backyard or she’s on a tennis court laughing and providing job security for her coach.

Her debut thriller, Broken Bayou, follows Dr. Willa Watters, a prominent child psychologist at the height of her career. But when a viral video of a disastrous television interview puts her reputation on the line, Willa retreats to Broken Bayou, the town where she spent most of her childhood summers. There she visits her aunts’ old house and discovers some of her unstable mother’s belongings still languishing in the attic—dusty mementos harboring secrets of her harrowing past. Willa’s hopes for a respite are quickly crushed, not only by what she finds in that attic but also by what’s been found in the bayou. With waters dropping due to drought, mysterious barrels containing human remains have surfaced, alongside something else from Willa’s past, something she never thought she’d see again. Divers, police, and media flood the area, including a news reporter gunning for Willa, and Travis Arceneaux—a local deputy and old flame.

Jennifer stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about writing and researching her book:

When it comes to writing and researching, I work backward. I don’t do a lot of research before writing the first draft. Research can turn into quicksand for me so I like to get that first draft down the way I want it to happen first Then, in the next drafts, I change it to what should happen, according to my research.

With Broken Bayou, I started my research online and with the actual town. I printed out a map of southern Louisiana and marked where my made-up town would be on it.

Then I hand-drew a map of the town. I named the streets and added in the stores mentioned in the first draft. One of those stores is a place called Taylor’s Marketplace and Bait Shop. I fashioned it after a real store from my past, the halfway mark between my house and my grandparents’ house called Taylortown Store.

I also downloaded a floorplan to use as a reference for the house my protagonist returns to, Shadow Bluff.

Google Street View helped me look at police stations in small Louisiana towns and I watched several police press conferences on YouTube. I studied the details, the questions, the phrases used. And I compiled a folder with newspaper articles about the story that first gave me the idea for Broken Bayou. The articles were about a missing schoolteacher in New Orleans who accidentally drove her car into a bayou and when divers went in to fish it out, they discovered more than they bargained for. This quote from one of the articles stayed with me:

"Waterways are good dumping grounds…”

Once I was done with setting, I moved on to the delightfully gruesome task (yes, I’m one of those people) of interviewing a forensic pathologist and someone in Louisiana law enforcement. These interviews were over the phone and via email. The men I spoke with told me stories ranging from the strangely high numbers of serial killers in south Louisiana to a body farm in Tennessee to the rate of decomposition once a body is in water. More than once I asked for them to pause during a story so I could take a minute to shake off the images in my head. But that’s where I needed to go to get those pesky details right.

I also had the pleasure of visiting the North Louisiana Crime Lab where I took a tour of the morgue, the DNA sample room, and my favorite, the firearms room where they fired guns recovered from crime scenes to get the markings from the bullets. The room contained something called a firing tank which allowed a tech to fire a weapon into a long rectangular tank of water because water preserves the markings.

Guns are another area I wanted to research. In the past, I’ve taken gun safety classes and growing up in the Sportsman’s Paradise, I’ve had ample opportunities to shoot a gun. I know what one feels like in my hand, how it kicks, what it smells like. All important things to understand if any character at any time uses a gun.

In addition, I took an online class taught by a detective about gun myths and things that can happen on TV shows but not in books. Books are held to a different standard. Did you know that a car door will not block a bullet? I see characters hiding behind them all the time on TV. This is a no-no for a book though. Even in a fictitious town with made-up characters, the details still need to be factual.

Great YouTube video on these myths here: https://youtu.be/U6T0Za3aRI4?si=0ptF2Yu4z5dMyaeC

The most fun I had with my research though were the visits with a friend of mine who is a child psychologist, the profession of my protagonist. In the summer of 2020, we sat on her back porch and talked for hours. She led me through everything it takes to get a Ph.D. in her field - from college to grad school to dissertations and clinicals – all information I would only use as backstory. But I had to know what it took for my character to accomplish what she did. I learned phrases and tricks of the trade as well as a deeper understanding of children who have suffered trauma, are neurodiverse, or both. It was fascinating and heartbreaking and gave me such a deep respect for the profession.

I love to learn so research is something I look forward to. I also know if I start with it, I may never write the novel. I can get lost online or listening to stories or watching YouTube clips. That’s why I put it off until after the first draft. And a lot of what I researched for Broken Bayou never made it into the novel. As writers, we must pick and choose not only our words but also what research is important to include in those words. Too much research will bog down the pace, too little will fail to set up the moment. It’s quite the fine line. I treat research like a giant buffet. I spread it all out on the table, but I only put my favorites on the plate.

 

You can learn more about Jennifer Moorhead and her books via her website and follow her on Instagram and Facebook. Broken Bayou was just released via Thomas & Mercer and is available from all major booksellers.

Author R&R with Baron Birtcher

Baron Birtcher spent a number of years as a professional musician, guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He founded an independent record label, and spent 18 years in the commercial real estate business in California. He later turned his hand to writing crime fiction, and his first two hardboiled mystery novels, Roadhouse Blues and Ruby Tuesday were Los Angeles Times and Independent Mystery Booksellers Association bestsellers. He’s also the winner of the Silver Falchion Award (Hard Latitudes); Winner of Killer Nashville Readers Choice Award (South California Purples); and Best Book of the Year Award for Fistful Of Rain. He has also been nominated for the Nero Award, the Lefty, the Foreword Indie, the Claymore, and the Pacific Northwest's Spotted Owl Awards. His new novel, Knife River, is now available from Open Road.

Knife River is the fourth installment in a series with Sheriff Ty Dawson, a rancher, lawman, military veteran, husband, and father in 1970s Oregon. There are rules in the West no matter what era you were born in, and it’s up to lawman Ty Dawson to make sure they’re followed in the valley he calls home. The people living on this unforgiving land keep to themselves and are wary of the modern world’s encroachment into their quiet lives.

So it’s not without some suspicion that Dawson confronts a newcomer to the region: a record producer who has built a music studio in an isolated compound. His latest project is a collaboration with a famous young rock star named Ian Swann, recording and filming his sessions for a movie. An amphitheater for a live show is being built on the land, giving Dawson flashbacks to the violent Altamont concert. Not on his watch.

But even beefed up security can’t stop a disaster that’s been over a decade in the making. All it takes is one horrific case bleeding its way into the present to prove that the good ol’ days spawned a brand of evil no one wants to revisit...

Birtcher stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about writing the Ty Dawson series

 

COWBOYS, WRITERS & MUSICIANS and THE ORIGINS OF KNIFE RIVER AND THE TY DAWSON SERIES

By Baron Birtcher

I have long held the belief that you can tell a lot about a cowboy by the way he treats his hat; the way he wears it, and the way he treats it when he takes it off his head. The same can be said about a musician and his instrument, the songwriter and his guitar. We reveal ourselves by the way we treat our favorite objects, and even more so the way we treat our animals, or speak about others in their absence, and the way we treat both friends and strangers in their presence.

I also believe it is the writer’s responsibility to reveal these things—in sum and substance, it is the very core of what we do. If we fail to reach for revelation, for insight, unique perspectives and observations, we are selling ourselves short, and likewise our readers.

In my life, I have had the great joy to participate in all of these pursuits—horseman, musician, and writer—and for me, there is a distinct confluence, a synergy among them that has taught me a great deal about nature, people, and the world.

In recent weeks, I have been doing a number of talks and signings in support of the release of the newest installment of the Sheriff Ty Dawson crime thriller series, Knife River. As has always been the case, my favorite part of those events is the audience Q&A, where readers get to delve deeper into the backstory, the characters, the musical references, and details about the writing process. But the question I encounter most frequently regards the origins of Ty Dawson, and the fictional locale Meriwether County, in which Dawson plies his trade as both a rancher and a sheriff.

In fact, I often characterize the series as Longmire meets Yellowstone in the 1970s.

Frankly, I love that these books are so evocative for many of us, and the fact that they take place during the 1970s conjures such a vast mélange of memories, images and feelings. I had hoped the series would be an immersive reading experience as I was writing it, and I have been rewarded by kind comments from readers to that exact effect, which truly warms my heart.

So, I thought it might be interesting to share with you a slightly more detailed version of the response I offer when asked about the origins of Sheriff Ty Dawson, and I hope it adds dimension and depth to the stories for you, and enriches the experience—as is my intention.  

I like to say that I was born in South California (a term that is infrequently—if ever—used by anyone other than me, but I’ve always liked the look of those words on the page), birthed at the crossroads of the Eisenhower and Kennedy eras, reared in the shadow of Aquarius, and graduated from high school in the ballroom of the Hotel California.

I celebrated my 40^th birthday while living in Kona, Hawaii, and after fifteen years in that island paradise, moved to the Willamette Valley, Oregon, where my wife and I reside today. But South California has remained as much a part of me as I of her, and not only because I still have family living there.

I was raised on a small ranch in San Juan Capistrano, a tiny (at the time) agricultural hamlet on the southern California coast, in many ways very much like the fictional town of Meridian, the epicenter of the Ty Dawson series, which began with the award-winning South California Purples. And, like my central character Ty Dawson, I grew up surrounded by horses, cattle, and untolled acres of farmland (orange groves, strawberries, avocados and cattle in my case), learning to saddle and handle a horse (a pony, at first) by the time I had reached my fourth birthday.

The timeline of the Ty Dawson series is set in the mid-1970s, although I chose that period for reasons most people may not be aware. I am the youngest of three children, with a brother and sister who are six- and four- years my senior, respectively. As the youngest among us, I had the distinct advantage of observing the experiences, glories and errors experienced by my siblings, and did my level best to steer clear of the growing list of things they did that drew the ire of my parents.

In 1973, the year in which the first of the Ty Dawson mysteries takes place, I was twelve years old. The very serious conversations that were taking place around our dinner table that year revolved around my brother having attained the age of registration for the military draft—the war in Vietnam continuing to rage unabated—augmented by stern warnings to my high-school-aged sister to avoid the manifold dangers of hallucinogenic drugs and, of course, boys. I listened with rapt interest and no small amount of trepidation, my pre-teen mind not always comprehending the complexities of the subject matter, nor the reasons my parents appeared so enormously apprehensive about the chaotic state of our world at that time, and the escalating social turmoil in our country. In retrospect, I suppose I believed that watching body-counts being tallied like box scores on the nightly network news was the norm.

Jump-cut to the year 2020, the year my family learned my father’s health had deteriorated both suddenly and considerably, and he had been given only a short time to live. Thankfully, my tribe had always been a close one, so we rallied around him in his final months, spending time together reminiscing and listening to his recollections of life growing up in Orange County, California. It was only then that I realized the breadth of all I hadn’t understood as a young boy listening in at that dinner table back in the tumultuous 1970s, more fully appreciating the concerns and fears that my parents had faced in raising teenagers amidst the Age of Aquarius, at the confluence of free-love, war and protest, and the social and political fallout that was to follow.

I began to see my father through a different lens, and as I did, Ty Dawson came fully to life in my imagination during those precious weeks. In 1973, he was a 40-year-old man who had seen battle in the Korean War; a man who had been raised with a set of expectations fostered by the Eisenhower era, staking a claim on an American Dream that was changing drastically and rapidly, right before his eyes. A man who witnessed his children coming to terms with wildly different challenges than he’d had to cope with in his youth. And as I sifted and explored the mindset from which Ty Dawson arose—myself having become a parent (and grandparent) now—Ty grew into a fully-fledged, three-dimensional character for me, as did Ty’s wife and daughter, and the friends and neighbors that have come to populate Dawson’s hometown, fictional Meriwether County. As a result, every moment I spend with Sheriff Ty Dawson as I write this series, I can hear the voice of my late father, who thankfully lived long enough to see the publication of South Calfornia Purples, and the dedication page in that volume which bears his name.

I spent those intervening years first as a working musician, record producer, and as an artist manager—advising, listening, traveling, laughing, negotiating and sometimes arguing with some of the most fascinating people in the world; my exposure to the music of my youth informing every mile and every moment. Perhaps one of my most cherished chapters from that period came from my association with legendary music- and film-producer, James William Guercio, founder of the famed Caribou Ranch Studios. Situated in the rural front range of the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, Caribou Ranch became the iconic recording resort home-away-from-home for artists as varied as Paul McCartney, Elton John, Michael Jackson, Chicago and John Lennon (among dozens of others). This association formed the backbone of a fictionalized narrative thread in Knife River, which to say much more about would spoil the fun…

My parents departed southern California for the Napa Valley almost 35 years ago now, though my two siblings remain, these days surrounded by the houses and highways that have replaced the vast acreage of orange trees, the golden blooms of wild mustard weed, and the lowing of cattle in the folds inside the foothills of my youth. But as many of us would likely agree, the place that dwells inside the root system of one’s childhood never departs—the landscape might look different, replaced or revised from that which resides inside our memories, but the heart still skips a beat when first returning ‘home’ after an absence.

 

You can learn more about Baron Birtcher by following him on Facebook and Instagram. Knife River is now available via all major booksellers.